PunditMom » Feminismhttp://www.punditmom.com
Having an opinion never goes out of style.Wed, 05 Jun 2013 19:07:55 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.3Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer: “Lean In” and Get Your Butt to the Office!http://www.punditmom.com/2013/02/sheryl-sandberg-and-marissa-mayer-lean-in-and-get-your-butt-to-the-office
http://www.punditmom.com/2013/02/sheryl-sandberg-and-marissa-mayer-lean-in-and-get-your-butt-to-the-office#commentsMon, 25 Feb 2013 17:01:37 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=11531Lean in! Take charge! No fear!

Out with flex-time! In with face time!

These are the messages two of the highest profile working mothers in America are sending to the rest of us. If Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, …

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Out with flex-time! In with face time!

These are the messages two of the highest profile working mothers in America are sending to the rest of us. If Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, and Marissa Mayer, Yahoo!’s Chief Executive Officer, have their way, women in the workplace will remake themselves in their C-Suite images which, sadly, is looking like something from the 1980′s movie Working Girl.

The funny thing about their recent messages to working women is this – some of their sentiments sound an awful lot like what I heard as a young journalist and then as a new attorney in a large law firm decades ago.

What’s old is new again?

Whether it’s fair or not, I expect more of high-powered women leaders who also happen to be mothers when it comes to understanding what’s realistic for most women in the workforce — especially when the online community of women has rallied around them in the past, as happened when Mayer announced shortly after becoming Yahoo!’s CEO, that she was pregnant and would only be taking a couple of weeks off for maternity leave.

As for Sandberg, her new book,Lean In: Women Work and the Will to Lead, (which I read after borrowing an advance review copy) makes some good points about women needing to take charge of their careers, and not being afraid to “lean in” to the challenges of managing a professional life with family responsiblities, but it’s hard to focus on her positive points when, for most of the book, she tries really hard to portray herself as just another ordinary working mom who’s overcome the same problems the rest of us face. That’s a tough sell, as she shares anecdotes like the one about how happy she was that on a business trip with her kids she was on a private jet, and not a commercial flight, when she discovered her daughter had head lice (WHEW! Dodged a bullet on spreading those nits!).

As for Mayer, Yahoo! announced late last week that all flex-time and remote working arrangements would be rescinded, and if you want to keep your job at Yahoo!, you have to be in the office every day. Even though there is plenty of research that shows employers and employees benefit in productivity when certain flexible work arrangements are in place, in a lively Faecbook discussion, I questioned how many women must be feeling today who came to Mayer’s defense of her personal parenting/career choice when she said she was only taking two weeks off after having her baby. Her baby, her decision. Sure, we all knew she had a boat load of help, but whatever works for her, right?

As one friend who is been a working mother in the corporate world remarked about Mayer :

“While I do understand that this is first and foremost a business decision that Mayer has made for Yahoo!, impacts both men and women, and may be in the best long-term interests for the company, it is impossible to not also view it through a feminist lens that understands that working mothers and two-income families have been among the chief beneficiaries of flexible working arrangements. And it is a shame that we can’t incorporate these values into business success.”

Mayer, in making her corporate decision, and Sandberg, in trying to craft a new social movement by using her life as example, are both blithely ignoring the realities of life for the vast majority of working families today.

Pregnancies have complications. Babies might be easy in some senses (they are portable for a while), but kids have issues and problems and illnesses and conditions. There are families who having double care-giving obligations — for young kids and for aging parents. Yes, we should expect our spouses and partners to be involved in dealing with these things and all the other complications of life, but it is never as easy as it sounds. Both Mayer and Sandberg, at a time when they are trying to demonstrate their own leadership abilities, have made their tone-deafness abundantly clear.

Mayer and Sandberg may be very well-intentioned — looking out for shareholders and encouraging women to aim for more — but the ways in which they are going about these two goals will only take us back to the time when women had to sneak out of the office if they needed to be home early (oh, wait, even Sandberg admits she did that) and bringing back that mom guilt I thought we’d all agreed wasn’t good for anybody.

Finding and creating ways to put the female half of the globe on more even footing with men has been a mission that Hillary’s held close to her heart for pretty much her whole life. Just read a few pages of any of her biographies and that’s evident. And Clinton reminded us shortly before the 2012 presidential election, knowing she wouldn’t be signing on for a second tour of duty at the State Department, that making women around the world equal partners in their fates was “one of the great pieces of unfinished business of the 21st century.”

Now that Hillary is out of the State Department, and is hopefully having a little “me” time, what happens to that “great piece of unfinished business?” Former U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry has quipped that, following Clinton and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice into the State Department, he has “big heels to fill.” To fill those sensible pumps or seriously kick-ass boots, depending on which predecessor he’s referring to, Kerry needs a continued focus on the subset of human rights that specifically addresses the lives of women and girls around the world.

Kerry remarked recently that he will focus on “mak[ing] a difference in the lives of other people,” citing priorities of the USAID such as education, global health and HIV prevention programs, ending extreme poverty, and gender equality. But is that enough? Or if Hillary Clinton’s efforts are to be continued, does there have to be a separate commitment? And must that effort be headed by a woman?

Hillary had a lot of help in championing the cause of bettering the lives of women and girls around the world from someone I will call her partner in crime (and I mean that in the most complimentary way) Melanne Verveer, the first ever U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues.

Just a few weeks ago, President Obama did issue a statement reiterating his support and commitment in coordinating America’s policies and programs to “promote equality and empower women and girls globally.” How that goal is implemented totally depends on any particular Secretary of State’s agenda.

So where does Kerry stand? On domestic women’s issues, he’s received a 100 percent rating from the American Association of University Women and as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he supported the International Violence Against Women Act. Those are good signs of things to come. But let’s see how he incorporates that into his style of running foreign policy. I hate to say it, but I’m not sure a male Secretary of State can carry the flag of global women’s issues as effectively as another woman.

Hillary Clinton is now a retired woman. She has officially stepped down from her post as Secretary of State. She’s no longer a U.S. Senator or First Lady. She’s not waging a presidential campaign — …

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Image via EMILY's List

Hillary Clinton is now a retired woman. She has officially stepped down from her post as Secretary of State. She’s no longer a U.S. Senator or First Lady. She’s not waging a presidential campaign — yet. And those pesky Benghazi hearings are over!

What are we political women going to do without Hillary in our lives? She has been a presence on the national stage for over 20 years. Now she’s a lady of leisure. Apart from her myriad “exit” interviews, like with 60 Minutes, what is Hillary going to do with her time?

Regardless of your political persuasion, I think we can all agree this is one woman who deserves a nice nap, a glass of Chardonnay and a nice spa visit. As I keep my fingers crossed about what is next for her on the political stage, I’ve been thinking about my favorite moments from her stint as Secretary of State (aside from the tongue-lasing she gave some people on Capitol Hill at the Benghazi hearings!

1. One of the best is reflected in the image at the top of this post, from her meetings with Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Su Kyi. For me, this is the photo that is the face of what women’s leadership increasingly looks like — one that is infused with common ideas, compassion, and, yes, friendship.

2. She understands the importance of connecting with powerful women in many arenas, including entertainment. One of those is Meryl Streep. I’m not assuming from this image taken at Kennedy Center Honors event in December that Hillary and Meryl are BFF’s, but they could be now that Hillary’s globetrotting is done for the moment.

4. She traveled almost one million miles around the world to make it a better place for women and girls.

5. She’s confident enough in herself to talk about being a mom. Not all the time, but when she’s asked about Chelsea, she beams. And there’s nothing wrong with that — no matter what some feminists who are younger than me think about how being a mother informs our world view.

Image via The Telegraph

6. And she doesn’t let a little old concussion keep her down. I have new-found empathy for concussions after suffering a small one myself over the holidays (and, no, I did not hit my head just to be like her!). Regardless of what those Fox News conspiracy theorists said about her, a concussion is no laughing matter, but it didn’t keep her out of action for long.

Image via Department of State/Nick Merrill

What’s your favorite Hillary Clinton moment? Actually, now that I think about, my favorite Hillary moment will be the day she announces her 2016 presidential bid!

]]>http://www.punditmom.com/2013/01/my-six-favorite-hillary-clinton-moments/feed7Over the Top Hillary-Bashinghttp://www.punditmom.com/2013/01/over-the-top-hillary-bashing
http://www.punditmom.com/2013/01/over-the-top-hillary-bashing#commentsThu, 24 Jan 2013 18:05:05 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=11432Like I alluded to yesterday, some things will never change for Hillary Clinton …

]]>http://www.punditmom.com/2013/01/over-the-top-hillary-bashing/feed3Roe v. Wade in Black and Whitehttp://www.punditmom.com/2013/01/roe-v-wade-in-black-and-white
http://www.punditmom.com/2013/01/roe-v-wade-in-black-and-white#commentsTue, 22 Jan 2013 15:33:32 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=11399Forty years doesn’t seem like all that long ago — especially for someone like me who is over 40! But on the 40th anniversary of the landmarkRoe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that guaranteed that women’s access to …]]>Forty years doesn’t seem like all that long ago — especially for someone like me who is over 40! But on the 40th anniversary of the landmarkRoe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that guaranteed that women’s access to abortion could not be directly outlawed by the states — it’s a bit jarring to see the reporting on the decision from that time, in all its black and white glory:

Sadly, those rights have been chipped away at so much across America, that while states cannot ban abortions outright, they have instituted laws that make it virtually impossible for women to have access to the procedure (I’m looking at you Mississippi, Texas and Virgina).

]]>http://www.punditmom.com/2013/01/roe-v-wade-in-black-and-white/feed0Crow After Roe: What You Should Really Know on Roe v. Wade’s 40th Anniversaryhttp://www.punditmom.com/2013/01/crow-after-roe-what-you-should-really-know-on-roe-v-wades-40th-anniversary
http://www.punditmom.com/2013/01/crow-after-roe-what-you-should-really-know-on-roe-v-wades-40th-anniversary#commentsMon, 21 Jan 2013 20:21:19 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=11396Robin Marty and Jessica Pieklo, two of my compatriots at our group project The Broad Side, have been working long and hard on their book about what has happened to women’s reproductive rights since the Supreme Court decision …]]>Robin Marty and Jessica Pieklo, two of my compatriots at our group project The Broad Side, have been working long and hard on their book about what has happened to women’s reproductive rights since the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973 through today. On the 40th anniversary of the historic ruling that guaranteed a woman’s right to decide her own reproductive destiny, their book Crow After Row: How Women’s Health is the New “Separate But Equal” and How Change That, that examines how those rights have been whittled away in the last four decades, will be released soon.

Robin and Jessica have provided this exclusive excerpt as part of our commemoration of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling:

Wendy Long, the 2012 Republican challenger to New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, notoriously told local news outlet Capital New York that if Roe was overturned, it was highly unlikely anyone would even notice at this point. “[I]f Roe v. Wade were overturned tomorrow, nobody would even notice, because the states are legislating their own laws about abortion, completely independent.”

Would anyone notice? Yes, of course they would, depending on the state that they lived in and their economic means. Access to abortion will always be a reality for women in certain states like California, New York, Washington and other places that value a woman’s right to control her body. But in states like Texas, Arizona and Kansas, it’s a different story. As The Center for Reproductive Rights reported in a 2004 study “If Roe Fell,” only twenty states (at the time) would have safe, legal abortion if Roe were overturned. The other thirty states would have limited access, and twenty-one of those would likely have no access at all based on their own trigger laws or previous state court verdicts.

If “nobody would even notice,” it would only be because in many states, restrictions prior to having an abortion have become so onerous that access has become a matter of where a woman lives or how much money she has. From laws that ban abortion at different points prior to viability such as in Nebraska and Ohio, to laws that ban certain types of abortions such in Wisconsin, legislators are inserting themselves as authorities on medical best practices and turning providers into criminals. In Indiana, they are seeking ways of criminalizing women for “endangering” their pregnancies, while in Idaho, prosecutors have taken steps towards jailing women for procuring their own abortions. Washington D.C., Texas and Kansas have all found different means to use funding as a way to cut off women’s access to reproductive health services, while South Dakota, Oklahoma and Mississippi use “informed consent” and “women’s safety” as a means to deny the right to choose. Arizona simply bans everything and hopes one of the laws will eventually make it to the Supreme Court.

With 40 years of judicial precedent that has incrementally rolled back abortion access to work with and a panel of Supreme Court justices who appear more willing than ever to re-open an issue that is considered settled law, women’s reproductive rights have never been more vulnerable. And thanks to a handful of state legislators determined to make their political names and reputations by advancing legislation meant to crumble those protections offered by Roe, we may fragment into a new Confederacy of pro- and anti-women’s health states sooner than anyone could have imagined. To prevent that from happening, we need to move away from just defending a woman’s right to choose and back to an aggressive stance where we once more demand that bodily autonomy belong to all woman, regardless of their race or class.

Anti-choice activists have set the battleground in states like Nebraska, Wisconsin, Idaho, Indiana, Ohio, Texas, Kansas, D.C., Arizona, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Mississippi. They have used the legislatures to create the laws that regulate abortion practically out of existence and padded the judiciary with abortion-hostile justices to control legal challenges. But by examining each individual prong in the attack on Roe it is clear that the assault is not simply on women, but on women who have the least means to fight back by themselves and for themselves. Together we can create a game plan to bring the fight back to these states and across the country as a whole in order to create an equitable health care system that offers reproductive justice for all.

]]>http://www.punditmom.com/2013/01/crow-after-roe-what-you-should-really-know-on-roe-v-wades-40th-anniversary/feed1What You Should Know About Abortion on the 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wadehttp://www.punditmom.com/2013/01/what-you-should-know-about-abortion-on-the-40th-anniversary-of-roe-v-wade
http://www.punditmom.com/2013/01/what-you-should-know-about-abortion-on-the-40th-anniversary-of-roe-v-wade#commentsTue, 15 Jan 2013 20:33:48 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=11336In just a few days, we will mark the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that ruled that our Constitutional right to privacy under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment extends to a …]]>In just a few days, we will mark the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that ruled that our Constitutional right to privacy under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment extends to a woman’s decision to have an abortion.

“It’s a step that had to be taken . . . toward the full emancipation of women.”

Four decades later, women are further from that “full emancipation” than they were in 1973. Want to know more about the real state of abortion access in America and how it impacts women’s health? Stay tuned for an exclusive excerpt from the forthcoming book Crow after Roe:How “Separate But Equal” Has Become the New Standard In Women’s Health And How We Can Change That, by Robin Marty and Jessica Pieklo.

Every now and then there are times when parenting, feminism and sexism collide. When they do, you know I have to write about them!

By now, you may have seen Matt Lauer’s interview with Anne Hathaway on the Today Show …

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Every now and then there are times when parenting, feminism and sexism collide. When they do, you know I have to write about them!

By now, you may have seen Matt Lauer’s interview with Anne Hathaway on the Today Show where, instead of focusing on her upcoming movie Les Miserables, he decided it was better to mock her about a recent “wardrobe malfunction.”

Why do I care about this episode? It’s not because I think Hathaway needs my help. She did just fine on her own killing Lauer with her kindness and grace. I’m writing about this because my daughter, who is about to turn 13, is also starting to learn about how men try to objectify women and their bodies.

She’s never held political office herself, but it turns out that Sanford is on the short list of potential replacements for Jim DeMint, the current junior Senator from the Palmetto State, and a founding member of the Tea Party Caucus in the Senate, who recently announced he’s resigning before his term ends to take a job as the president of The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

And the person thinking about making Sanford female Senator number 21 is the governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley.

There are plenty of skeptics about whether Sanford is qualified to be appointed to one of 100 seats in the U.S. Senate. Some people have questioned whether her notoriety from her husband’s escapades is enough to put her in contention to be one of the most politically powerful women in the country.

There’s no doubt she’s smart — she was a Wall Street banker before she stepped off her career path to be a political spouse. And it’s true she has no elected political experience of her own. But there is a huge reason South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley could appoint Sanford (and not Stephen Colbert!) to the seat that current Senator Jim DeMint has announced he’s leaving.

I’m calling it the rise of the “New Girls Network.”

There’s a back-story to why Haley may decide that Jenny Sanford is the right person to send to Washington, D.C. Nikki Haley wasn’t supposed to become governor of South Carolina. When she launched her bid in 2010, she was behind in a pack of five candidates in a primary fight. Then super-endorser Sarah Palin swooped in to bestow her political blessing and suddenly Haley was a semi-celebrity. But even more importantly for South Carolina voters, Haley — a political unknown at the time — won the support of then-First Lady Sanford, who was quite open about the fact that she was tired with the state’s politics as usual theme:

“Our state’s future is too important to leave to just another go-along-get-along career politician. Nikki Haley is the best person to be South Carolina’s next Governor.”

It’s probably safe to say that without Jenny Sanford’s support, Haley would have had a much harder time winning the governor’s race and, perhaps, she even owes her win to Sanford. So how do you thank someone for such a huge favor?

Can you say “patronage?”

Patronage appointments are nothing new in the world of politics. But there have been so few women governors who have been in a position to fill unfinished congressional terms, this moment in Haley’s tenure is one everyone is watching. But this is also a particularly important opportunity for Republican women.

In a U.S. Senate where 16 of the soon-to-be 20 women are Democrats, and in a time when Republicans are finally figuring out they cannot win national races without the support of women, it makes complete sense for Haley to appoint Sanford. Whether Haley has the intestinal fortitude to push back against the political establishment that’s calling on her to choose another name from that short list, is another matter. While I personally favor fewer Republicans and more Democrats in office, if Haley really wants to help promote the agenda of Republican women, the time to strike is now.

It’s also been reported that Catherine Templeton, a conservative attorney selected by Haley to head her state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control, is on the Senate short list. Both women are reported to have “warm personal relationships” with Governor Haley.

If Republican women really want to have a bigger voice in their party politics, this could be a good time to move the GOP girl power agenda forward. Republicans in general may not have a binder full of women from which to choose appointees for the national stage, but I’m sure GOP women do. And I have a sense that they’re increasingly going to be turning to those “binders” to grow their conservative ranks.

]]>http://www.punditmom.com/2012/12/will-nikki-haley-jenny-sanford-launch-the-gop-new-girls-network/feed0You’re Not a Feminist, But …??http://www.punditmom.com/2012/12/youre-not-a-feminist-but
http://www.punditmom.com/2012/12/youre-not-a-feminist-but#commentsFri, 07 Dec 2012 14:15:04 +0000http://www.punditmom.com/?p=11162I’m not quite sure which feminist wave I fall into, but I am one. I’m proud to say that even though there are many young women these days who often start their sentences with, “I’m not a feminist, but …”…]]>I’m not quite sure which feminist wave I fall into, but I am one. I’m proud to say that even though there are many young women these days who often start their sentences with, “I’m not a feminist, but …”

But I believe in equal pay for equal work.

But I think women can do anything men can do.

But I think girls can become any profession buys can.

But, but, but.

I have one more “but” to add to that list. I’ll tell you more at my online magazine, The Broad Side.